Once again, Klara won the reading competition at her school. She beats every grade up to and including the eighth the second year in a row. But that’s not the surprising thing in this story. The literature professor’s kid reads, big whoop.
The reason why I’m writing about it is that she got a bag of prizes, one of which is a bottle of soda. These are supposed to be multicultural prizes, and the soda is Mexican. My kid had never as much as had a sip of soda in her life before this. What is this, learn to read and earn childhood diabetes as a reward?
Also, in terms of multicultural prizes, she already has multicultural prizes in the person of every single one of her relatives. Mexican soda and Brazilian chips have nothing on us.
On the positive side, she’s started on The Chronicles of Narnia. I missed that experience as a kid but I heard these books are a classic. Curiously, as much as she loves to read, she refuses even to consider reading on a Kindle. “A real book has PAGES, Mommy!” she says with a scandalized look when I suggest that it might be unnecessary to lug 5 thick volumes in her backpack wherever she goes. As if I didn’t lug my own hefty volumes, as well.
Clarissa's Blog 
“What is this, learn to read and earn childhood diabetes as a reward?”
Makes sense to me. You need to neutralize the smart ones somehow. A logical gift for the best reader would be more books. Do I dare to hope that at least one book made it into the bag of prizes?
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Zero books. She was told she reads too fast. The exact same thing happened to me at her age. A Soviet pediatrician said I was too smart for my age and needed to be slowed down so that I don’t become a serial killer. That was, apparently, the only path open to smart kids.
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It’s just as well. They would likely give her books well below her reading level that she isn’t interested in
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If a teacher is saying she reads too fast then she needs a different teacher.
I remember lugging around a giant backpack filled with books. I feel like itās just a right of passage for some kids.
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!!
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Yeah, they slowed me down by putting me in a “gifted” programme.
I was speaking whole sentences at six months, had mastered basic reading at a year, and when I was two, my grandfather bought me a year’s subscription to The Economist just to see if I could handle it.
The library started me out in the children’s section which I’d already outgrown, and so the librarians found a way for me to search the card catalogue.
I could borrow their short utility step stool as needed. š
So when it came to school time, well, these people felt they had to do something, because I was on track to become Doctor Doom.
BTW? It’s not too late. š
Any time now I hear these stories, my reaction is to think about how I can help these kids become Doctor Doom, or at least so capable and competent that they can stand shoulders equal with superheroes.
How I wound up an architect instead of an economist or lawyer … that’s appropriate for elsewhere.
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When I was a kid the reading prize was always a voucher for a free pizza at Pizza Hut.
I rarely got it, because I couldn’t be bothered to fill out the little paper slip for each book. Too tedious.
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These days it’s all computerized. They do reading comprehension quizzes on the books they read.
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The trouble with ours was that we had to fill out the title and author on a slip of paper, and get a parent to sign off on it. That involved bringing the slip home, recording the title and author before the book went back to the library (couldn’t just go on the internet and look it up), getting a parent to sign it, and then bringing it all the way back to school and turning it in without forgetting or losing it. I was reading 10-20 books/wk. It was too complicated for my 7yo self. I wanted to read books. Not collect signatures and file paperwork. It was clearly preparation for filing taxes later.
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“On the positive side, sheās started on The Chronicles of Narnia. I missed that experience as a kid but I heard these books are a classic.”
For yourself, I strongly recommend Lewis’ Till We Have Faces. It has a strong female lead and some interesting explorations of gender all done in ways that are 180 degrees from being woke.
You should also look at Lewis’ academic work, particularly the beginning chapters of Allegory of Love where he explores the roles of adultery and fairy in medieval romances.
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I consider it a maternal win that my own best beloved daughter (and, O! The delight of my eyes) eschews electronic for paper books.
Narnia in hardcover with the Pauline Bayne’s illustrations are delightful.
Speaking of books, if you have not begun reading the Just So Stories to Klara, do consider it as a Christmas gift. She is at just the right age.
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Jungle Book, too!
My kids, until this week when it sadly cracked, had an outdated Kindle we found for $10 at a thrift store. Amzn doesn’t support them anymore, but you can still download books from project gutenberg, as well as .pdf files and things, and it would play audiobooks. They prefer paper books, but still liked having the kindle, because it made the whole gutenberg and librivox libraries available to them– books they couldn’t get at the public library, and which we could not afford to own in such vast quantities: all the Oz books, the Tom Swift series (yes, I know, they’re awful, but the boys are really fond of them and it’s nearly the only junk lit they read– Hardy Boys are too boring, apparently), antique books on chemistry, industrial processes, aeronautics, forts, armaments, and magic tricks, and other weird stuff like pdf airplane schematics sent them by indulgent engineer friends. So for books they really want, they beg us to buy them paper copies, but the ereader is a nice luxury adjunct to their reading habits, and it means whenever they develop a weird boy curiosity about something, we can go download half a dozen old books about it for them to peruse. We are feeling the lack, since it broke, and looking for a replacement.
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Literature saves.
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Clarissa, did you let Klara watch any TV at all? or any type of kid’s shows?
Seems clear Klara did not fall for the attention sucking vampires that are screen devices, so I’m curious what you did differently.
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Of course, she’s 7. At this point, depriving her of TV serves no purpose. She can watch what she wants. Right now she likes a cake-baking contest on Netflix. Who knows how she even found it.
I turned her into a reader because it was a big priority for me. For years, I invented and told stories. An endless stream of stories. Then she started to listen to books on tape. It became a habit. She listens all the time. And from there to reading, there’s a short step.
I never gave her a screen to shut her up or entertain her. I never even held a screen device in her presence. I’m addicted to my phone but around her it doesn’t exist.
My psychoanalyst was one of the world’s leading researcher into the impact of screens on child psychology and he told me such horrors that I became a convert.
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My kids really like the show “But Is It Cake?”
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Yes, it’s that one! Turns out it’s a favorite with the little generation. Who knew.
The cakes are really impressive.
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Sage advise Clarissa. Leading by example is key. Going to be hard giving up on smartphone use, but that seems very important.
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You know about the Mexican soda addiction problems, right?
The only reason you can get fizzy mineral water in Mexican grocery and convenience stores is that the two major brands are produced by Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
At least you can also now get PeƱafiel lemon-lime but with citric acid in the fizzy water, it’s almost as bad as drinking Mexicokes.
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I do know but I didn’t know we were trying to import this problem, too.
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Congratulations.
It’s probably too adult for her now, but if you haven’t read I am David by Anne Holm, look into it for when she nears adolescence and is ready for a really good book about a child’s awareness of life, death and religion.
[SPOILER NOTE]
Be aware however, that whilst Aslan understood the Deeper Magic, the same isn’t true of the dog in this book.
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